Pandas are More Plentiful Than Blockchain Developers

Apparently, there are less then 100 true Blockchain engineers in the world according to Bart Cant, a principal in Capgemini’s financial services practice.

“I’ve heard people say there are probably less than 100 true blockchain experts in the world.”

In an article at the Wall Street Journal Kim Nash interviewed Cant and notes that the giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) is more plentiful than real, hardcore Blockchain engineers (torquem scriptores).

At least twice a week I get messaged on Linkedin or by email from headhunters desperate to find Blockchain staff for their desperate clients. I have been reduced to simply copy pasting a generic response stating that they might have better luck finding the lost city of El Dorado than finding a Blockchain developer. At least through me anyway.

There’s certainly tons of room for training Blockchain developers and it would be good to see some more initiatives in this area. Blockchain events put together by event companies are a dime a dozen now, but it’s mainly Blockchain 101 and there’s little deep knowledge transfer going on. While we wait for curriculums to be created, it might be a good to see some more Blockchain hackathons in the scene – and put together Blockchain companies with APIs and SDKs with developers who are interested in the space backed by companies who are looking for talent or to build developer communities.

If you are interested in supporting initiatives of this kind, let us know at Blockchain News as we also run hackathons at our Foundation in The Netherlands, called the Hackitarians.

Founder of industry publication Blockchain News, partner at ICO services collective CryptoAsset Design Group (helped raise over $200m+), director of education company Blockchain Partners (Oracle Partner) and ICO event organiser at leading industry event CryptoFinancing (first ICO event in Europe) – Richard Kastelein is an award-winning publisher, innovation executive and entrepreneur. He sits on the advisory boards of half a dozen Blockchain startups and has written over 1200 articles on Blockchain technology and startups at Blockchain News and has also published pioneering articles on ICOs in Harvard Business Review and Venturebeat.

He is a Canadian (Dutch/Irish/English/Métis) whose writing career has ranged from the Canadian Native Press (Arctic) to the Caribbean & Europe. He’s written occasionally for Harvard Business Review, Wired, Venturebeat, The Guardian and Virgin.com and his work and ideas have been translated into Dutch, Greek, Polish, German and French.

A journalist by trade, an entrepreneur and adventurer at heart, Kastelein’s professional career has ranged from political publishing to TV technology, boatbuilding to judging startups, skippering yachts to marketing and more as he’s travelled for nearly 30 years as a Canadian expatriate living around the world.

In his 20s, he sailed around the world on small yachts and wrote a series of travel articles called, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Seas’ travelling by hitching rides on yachts (1989) in major travel and yachting publications. He currently lives in Groningen, Netherlands where he’s raising three teenage daughters with his wife and sailing partner, Wieke Beenen.

ICO Marketing

Laura Shen Forbes Podcast

Smith & Crown ICO Analysis

Refereum aims to disintermediate the game referral market with a smart contract-based bounty system for organic game promotion and achievement. This project is targeted at small-scale Twitch streamers and hobbyist gamers, who face challenges […]

Covesting is a cryptocurrency-focused trading and information platform aiming to bring a range of new tools to crypto traders and investors, including a peer-to-peer trade-following model, an advanced trading platform connected to multiple […]

GameFlip is launching a platform where digital goods purchased and earned on gaming platforms can be sold as liquid assets. A non-blockchain version is live today, and following an ICO, they plan to integrate smart contracts as payment escrow and […]

Gimmer is a blockchain-based platform for algorithmic cryptocurrency trading bots. The founders of Gimmer are looking to place the creation and deployment of automated trading systems into the hands of the broader trading population, including those […]

Solar Bankers is a renewable energy company proposing to facilitate the emergence of a p2p energy trading grid for locally produced energy, built around the company’s portfolio of solar product prototypes employing its proprietary, patented […]